What Good Sci-Fi is Out There? – Part 2

The first part of this post (link above) sparked quite a bit of interest and the feedback led me to re-evaluate how thorough I had been in tabulating what I thought of as “Good Sci-Fi Movies.”

One obvious omission is one of my favorite modern sci-fi universes, that is the ‘Verse of “Serenity” and all things Firefly. Sure, the creator of this space cowboy terra-forming future is Joss Whedon, perhaps the most virulent social justice warrior in all Hollywood SFF circles. And sure, River Tam is a five-foot-nothing, eighty-pound girl who can single handedly defeat an army of homicidal maniacs without even so much as a pop-gun. But any world that contains Jane Cobb must be doing something right.

Another omission that can be excused due to competing category confusion is “Galaxy Quest.” The movie is a brilliant parody of Star Trek. Humor is the primary motive of this film so assigning it to the Comedy shelf makes perfect sense. But it does include star ships, alien races and Sigourney Weaver so what the hell.

Three movies that were nominated by readers were Dark City, John Carter and Edge of Tomorrow. Now the mention reminded me that I had seen Dark City and liked it. It’s a very atmospheric almost noir-like film. And once you discover the mystery of the action it is seen to be a sci-fi film. So that was a good call.

I, of course, know of E.R. Burroughs Barsoom stories so I had heard of the John Carter film but the news coverage was all about how expensive it was and how much money it lost. Edge of Tomorrow was a big movie with Tom Cruise starring but it came out when I was too busy for movies unfortunately. So, I’m going to have to check these two films out on Netflix in the near future.
I’d love to hear from any of you readers out there that would like to put in a vote for a sci-fi movie that came out in the last twenty years or so. Give a little info on what you liked about it. The people who read this site are of course among the most discerning individuals so their opinions deserve to be heard.

Let me round off with some films I didn’t like (always a dangerous road to take). I hated the second and third Matrix installments. I thought they were plodding and incoherent. By the end of the third I wasn’t sure if there was anyone to root for. I was kind of hoping Agent Smith would win and destroy both the Matrix and Zion. After seeing how annoying they had all become I figured organic evolution should be given the chance to try again.

I really wasn’t crazy about Gravity. It was visually interesting and there was some dramatic tension and I like Sandra Bullock but I don’t think there was enough there, there, as they say. I know opinions will differ.
I tried to like Solaris. Some of it I did. But not enough to call it good. Let’s say it was pretty good.

I was told to watch Moon. There was some clever stuff in it. I didn’t love it. Maybe it was too realistic (claustrophobic) to enjoy. Well done but not enjoyable for me. Some people will really enjoy the cleverness.

So, there we have it. I’m pretty picky. I’d love to hear what you all think. Even (maybe especially) if you disagree. After all, wouldn’t it be boring if we were all exactly the same. Sort of like the Borg.
Next up will be my views on Fantasy films.

5 thoughts on “What Good Sci-Fi is Out There? – Part 2”

Don’t know how you feel about animation but I’d recommend the “prequel” to the Matrix trilogy. There’s some really amazing images and animation that really adds the main story. It’s really quite amazing. 4 out of 5 stars, “The Animatrix.”

Don’t know how you feel about animation but I’d recommend the “prequel” to the Matrix trilogy, “The Animatrix.” There are some amazing images and animation that really adds the main story. It’s quite amazing. 4 out of 5 stars,